A Reddit user has shared their innovative method of quickly designing maps for Dungeons & Dragons. Over the weekend, Diana Gaeta, a professional DM and RPG streamer, shared a Tiktok video on /r/DnD that explained her unique and quick method of creating maps for her D&D campaigns. The video quickly hit the front page of Reddit with over 33,000 upvotes and overwhelmingly positive praise. The method involves determining major geographical features and then creating a dice pool, and can be viewed in the video below:
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To start, Gaeta lists everything they need on the map on a piece of paper, including major cities, roadways, forests, and other geographical figures. Then, she assigns each list item a different dice type – if they need three cities on the map, they’ll add three eight sided dice to the pool. Once Gaeta establishes the dice pool, she simply gathers all the dice into a pot and then dumps them onto a blank piece of paper. She then traces the outline of the dice onto the paper and marks where each dice landed to give her a rough outline of a map. To finish, she “cleans up” the map using inkarnate, a web-based mapmaking program that has both a free version and a $25/year Pro version.
Frankly, this is a genius idea for creating maps in a hurry and is quick and easy way to build a fantasy world in minutes. Even if someone decides not to clean up the map using a map program, a DM can still use this method to quickly create a private reference for when their players are traveling around the world.
As noted above, Gaeta is a professional DM and can be hired out of the NYC area. More information about Gaeta and her excellent work can be found on her Facebook Page or Twitter.
